I'm relatively new to this discussion board, so I don't know if this post, excerpted from my Vietnam War memoir, is appropriate for this particular thread. It concerns an incident in South Vietnam in late February or early March, 1966, when one of the Marines in my platoon stepped on a mine and lost both of his legs just as night was falling. He was evacuated by a UH-34 D Seahorse helicopter, the chopper that is the primary concern of this thread. I will remove the post if members feel that it is inappropriate.
Bob
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We had marched all day long on yet another fruitless search-and-destroy mission, somewhere in Quang Ngai Province, finally stopping to bivouac in an area that, apparently, been visited by Australian troops, if the empty pack of Australian cigarettes I found was evidence of their presence. The Aussies, or someone who smoked Australian cigarettes, had dug several shallow foxholes — fighting pits — in the sandy, red soil. We had been in the area for 20 minutes or so, each of us repeatedly stepping in and out of our foxholes as we used our entrenching tools to enlarge them. Then Pfc. Mike Neeley, 19, stepped one last time out of his foxhole, and onto a mine.
The blast, only 15 yards or so away from me, stunned me. The sound of the explosion had to have been the loudest noise I had ever heard. It seemed like the end of the world. I cowered in my foxhole, unsure of what had happened and very frightened. Then, with debris raining out of the sky, someone called for a corpsman, and I gathered some of my scattered wits. By the time I reached Mike, my fellow corpsman, Larry Skonetski, was already at his side, cool and professional and more than able to make up for my fear. I was trembling like a leaf in a hurricane. Later, after I myself was wounded, Larry’s calmness as he gave me first aid was instrumental in helping me to understand that my life wasn’t over, and that I was fortunate to have been transferred to Lima Company’s 3rd Platoon, Larry’s platoon.
Mike’s lower left leg, what was left of it, looked like bloody hamburger, tapering from the knee to nothing — his left foot and ankle had vanished. Mike’s lower right leg had vanished, blown off at the knee; the end of his femur stuck out into the air so cleanly that it could have been used as a model for a medical illustration. Mike was fully conscious, and wasn’t even bleeding heavily; the blast had apparently cauterized his arteries. Larry and I used our belts as tourniquets around his thighs to make sure that he didn’t hemorrhage.
Years later, when I reconnected with Larry, he recalled that Mike tried to sit up. I remember Mike joking that his career as a competitive swimmer was over.
A hazardous nighttime medevac followed. Our radioman contacted the pilot of a Marine Sikorsky H-34D Seahorse helicopter, who was in the air several miles away. The pilot, guided by a Marine on the ground holding a dim flashlight, made a perfect landing within a few feet of us and our patient. Larry climbed onto the chopper to accompany Mike until they reached a field hospital. I stayed behind, and learned that I would be involved in yet another stressful operation at the end of a very stressful day: an ambush that would take out any Viet Cong who were foolish enough to be abroad at night, perhaps the same VC who had buried the mine that blew off Mike’s legs.
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I have no idea who the Seahorse pilot was, but he deserves a medal for attempting and completing that evacuation. Mike Neely, by the way, survived and had a productive life. I forget where he lives — in Minnesota or Michigan if I recall correctly; he told me in a phone conversation that he is the only double amputee in his state to obtain a motorcycle license.